


All Out Of Bubblegum

by KDtheGhostwriter



Category: Wolverine (Movies), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Calm Down Erik, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Language Barrier, Logan's Parenting Skills, Lone Wolf and Cub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:49:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDtheGhostwriter/pseuds/KDtheGhostwriter
Summary: Having escaped the Reavers in Oklahoma, Logan agrees to take X-23 the rest of the way to Eden, but on the way he runs into some unfinished business and decides to deal with it the only way he knows how. What else is a Weapon X to do?





	All Out Of Bubblegum

**Author's Note:**

> I found LOGAN to be an exceptional film at every level. I did feel like something was missing though, considering it was based very loosely on 'Old Man Logan'. And so, I humbly present this "deleted" scene from after the massacre on the farm, before they arrive in North Dakota.

“Hmph. Last one.”

Logan takes the wrapper in-between his teeth and tears the plastic off of his last stolen cigar. The thing came from a shithole gas station somewhere in East Texas and is as weak as one would expect, but they had been dodging the Reavers for a full day and before they shambled into OKC he absolutely fucking needed something to steel his nerves.

Oklahoma is long behind them now, and true to his fashion, he’d left a pile of bodies trailing behind. He told Charles they should’ve kept moving. Goddammit! Why couldn’t he have listened?

He pushes the cart full of scavenged supplies up onto the wooden bridge suspended over the large stream. It’s not just supplies he’s pushing, though. Peering into the cart he sees the mutant X-23 (no Laura is her name) asleep on the pile. She was so small. It was hard to believe she was capable of such death and destruction. Even harder to imagine her as a child.

His child.

When Logan discovered the truth of what Laura was, he was equal parts bewildered and annoyed. Children had never been on his to-do list, even a century ago before he became what he is now. And Jesus, how long had he been sterile for? Decades at the very least. Learning that she was a clone, though, that made things a bit more plausible. Those government bastards had never stopped trying to replicate the Weapon X experiment, even though the first one had ended with the whole lab murdered.

Laura wasn’t really a child then, at least, not in their eyes. She was child enough, though, which was why the Mexican woman had sought him out. Not to say Logan was happy about it. Laura’s entrance into his life had signaled the end of his two closest friends. Or, more accurately, the only two left.

The cart skips over an uneven plank on the walkway and the movement is enough to wake Laura, who pokes her head out over the front of the basket.

“Mornin’.”

Laura turns to face him, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Buenos días.”

Logan grunts. Laura was incubated in the womb of a Mexican girl. She spoke the language, but for every word he understood, it reminded him of the thousands of others he didn’t.

“I picked up some snacks for us. Still got a day or so ‘til North Dakota.”

Laura nods and inspects the haul Logan’s gathered. She finds a bag of chips she deems suitable and rips it open. She eats one and goes back to inspecting their current location. Logan watches this; gets an odd feeling, seeing this mutant creation behaving like a child for once, or at least, getting the chance to.

“Laura.” She looks up at him, still chewing. “Look, I’m sorry I blew up at ya…earlier in the car, I-” Logan looks to the sky. He hates talking in general, but especially when apologizing. “I’m not mad at you, or anything. I just don’t handle shit like this too well. There’s nothin’ for me to punch right now.”

Laura says nothing, tilts her head to one side. Finally, she pops another chip into her mouth and shrugs. “Es nada, Wolverine.”

“Hey, I told ya already, that’s not my name. You’re stickin’ with me, so you call me Logan. Comprende?”

Laura tries out the name like an unknown food. “Lo-gan?”

“Sí. Lo-gan.”

“Lo-gan.” Laura eats another chip but has her brow scrunched in concentration. She’s committing his name to memory.

Logan smirks. “Bien.”

They’re approaching the apex of the bridge and save for the typical woodland sounds, all is quiet.

“I’m sorry for hitting you, Lo-gan.”

And then she speaks, in English no less. He had been gobsmacked to learn she spoke at all. She apparently had a decent grasp of English on top of her Native tongue, which for a moment had Logan wonder, annoyed, why she couldn’t just use English all the time.

“Yeah, well, maybe we can both be better. That’s what Charles woulda wanted.”

He sees Laura’s expression darken at that. The Professor was an expert at reaching out to mutants and making them feel safe, so his bond with Laura was no surprise. He had been maybe the second person in her life to show her anything approaching true affection, and she had seen him get brutally murdered by a monster that looked just like Logan.

She hadn’t come to terms with that yet. Maybe she never would. Maybe _he_ never would. As big of a pain in the ass he was in the end, Charles Xavier was still his friend. And now he was buried anonymously in some piece of shit swamp: no one to know, no one to care.

Logan takes a big drag of his cigar. It’s almost spent but he still can barely feel the effects. “Cheap fuckin’ thing,” he grumbles as he clenches it between his teeth.

He’s on edge and he’s not sure why. Granted he’s always a bit on edge but today seems…different. Once he reaches the middle point of the bridge, he sees why and quickly rounds to the front of the cart to shove Laura down.

“¿Qué estás haciendo?”

“Shh!” Logan is taking his denim overshirt off and draping it over Laura’s head. “Listen to me, kid. There’s somebody up ahead and they’re bad news. You need to stay put, understand?”

Laura growls and beings to pop her claws.

Logan grabs her wrist roughly. “No! None of that, you understand? He’s too dangerous and if he knows you’re here, he _will_ kill you! Just stay hidden.”

Laura thinks about this, looks over Logan’s shoulder and wordlessly lowers into the cart.

“Gracias.”

Logan stands up from the cart and starts walking down the latter portion of the bridge. He takes one last drag, plucks the spent cigar from his mouth and grounds the stub onto a rotten plank. Before he exhales he says, “You look like shit, bub.”

Erik Lehnsherr, the mutant formerly known as Magneto, does look like shit. Even worse than Logan, which is a feat. He can see it on Erik’s face, despite it being obscured by his dumb ass helmet.

“It comes to us all in one way or another, my boy. Even you haven’t escaped the ravages of time. Not for lack of trying, I’m sure.”

“Piss off, Magnus. I don’t give a shit about your bellyachin’. I’m just trying-”

“Trying to what, Logan? Running again, are we? Don’t you tire of the same song and dance? The same record on repeat?”

“You shut your mouth!” Logan is seething. He couldn’t absolve himself of all the mess that surrounded them, but this man in front of him now was at least mostly responsible for all that had come crashing down. Logan begins to shake. “ _You_ don’t get to say a goddamn thing! I chose not to run 15 years ago and look what good it did. And where the hell were you, _Magneto_ , when those metal motherfuckers wiped us out?!”

_Snikt!_

Erik claps his hands loudly. “Yesssss!! There he is! The man I’ve been looking for! Not ‘James Howlett: Errand Boy! I want The Wolverine! Charles always saw you as a man, but I know the truth! You are a living, breathing weapon, deigned to destroy! Killing everything within reach!”

“Charles is dead!”

The words tumble from his mouth, unheeded. Erik stills. The reality of it had been settling, but now as he says it out loud, the full weight meets him. Logan retracts his claws.

“He’s dead,” Logan chokes out. “Buried him a day ago. I’m sorry.”

Erik’s expression is blank as he removes his helmet. He ponders over it and lets it drop onto the wooden surface of the bridge. “You killed him, then.”

Logan shakes his head twice. “No! Charles was my friend!”

“Well then, I’m glad I’m not yours, seeing that anyone tagged as your friend almost certainly ends up dead. And with your atrocious record of protecting them, how could you ever hope to protect _her_?”

“Her?”

“The child, Logan.” Erik looks past him to where the cart is still covered. Laura, for her part, had listened for once and stayed still. “Did you think I would not see her?”

Logan puts one hand up. No need trying to lie; he just needed to talk this madman down. “Erik, she has nothin’ to do with this, alright? I’m just tryin’ to get her to safety. I was hired.”

“Hm. I wonder. Why would someone hire The Wolverine to escort one small girl to safety? Perhaps it’s this?”

Erik lifts one hand in the direction of the cart and Logan hears struggling. He looks back to see Laura’s tiny frame being lifted into the air by an unseen force. Laura was suspended, kicking away at nothing. Magneto was latching onto the Adamantium in her skeleton. He was killing her!

Logan pivots on his left foot and plants it, taking off toward the end of the bridge. He drives his shoulder hard into Erik’s chest and sends him sprawling onto the hard surface of the walk. He turns and runs to the cart without thinking. He looks in to see Laura, clutching at the front of her shirt. She looks up to him with a mix of fury and fear in her face. Logan feels it, too.

He turns to walk back to the end of the bridge. Logan could feel it building; his feral rage and animal instinct. He was seconds from going berserk, but he wasn’t completely mindless yet.

“I’m gonna say it once, bub. Leave or die!”

It wasn’t the same Magneto in front of him. That much was clear as he struggled to his feet. He’s weak now. It gives Logan a touch more pause. He’d get no satisfaction in killing an old man.

“Why would I do that?”

“Cause I’m givin’ you a chance to walk, asshole!”

“Ha! Logan the Peacekeeper is such a dull proposition. And, honestly, you’re pretty shit at it. You may as well-”

Erik doesn’t get the chance to finish as Logan snaps and hauls them both over the railing and into the water below. The stream is deeper than it looks and it throws his senses off, otherwise Sir Metal Bending Fucker might be dead already.

Logan shoves Erik’s head down into the dirt and attempts to drive his claws down into the base of his skull. He’s met with resistance – more than he’s expecting from a weakened Magneto. He’s pushed off a few feet away and looks to see Erik coughing on his back, still stunned.

He sees his chance and pounces. The human part of his brain has nearly been taken over completely by The Wolverine. He’s coming down to maul the man below, but Erik gets his hands up with a moment left to spare and uses Logan’s momentum to send him flying away into one of the supports of the bridge. The wooden beam is sturdy but splinters under the pressure of Logan’s body crashing into it.

It hurts, but his adrenaline – and his rage – are enough to dull the pain shooting through his spine. He gets up immediately and begins walking back towards Magneto. He can feel him manipulating the metal inside him. He’s trying to keep him at a distance. He knows he’s dead if Logan gets too close. Logan keeps moving forward, claws extended. He doesn’t care about efficiency or making this clean; he wants this bastard to fear him.

Erik puts up both his hands, then, and Logan is staggered back slightly. He recovers and steps forward before feeling the pressure relent all together.

“Give it up, Magnus. I forgot more about fighting than you ever got the chance to- hurk!”

The words – and the wind – get knocked out of him as what feels like a slab of steel slams into his back. Landing face-down in the creek bed, everything goes black. As his vision returns, he sees Erik’s boots and the car door that was just used to blindside him.

“bullshit…”

Logan feels himself being lifted into the air. All he can do is stare at the clear water running underneath him. He barely registers Erik speaking.

“It was always going to end this way for you, Logan. The things that you do come back to you. And we both know you’ve only been able to do one thing. Now you rot with the rest of the scum that betrayed me!”

How fucking typical. It really made sense for Mutant Kind to come to such a piss-poor end. Not with a bang – even a whimper would’ve been a step up – but with two shitty old men wrestling in the dirt. Charles Xavier was a good man. He advocated for everyone, but especially mutants who, otherwise, would’ve been forced into hiding or death. Now he was dead, too, and the world would only remember him as a weapon of mass destruction.

How would they remember Logan? As an animal? A monster? A chauffeur? Maybe, after enough time, they’d only remember that he finally lost.

“Agh!!”

Logan drops roughly and it jostles him into alertness. From his stomach he sees Laura, obscuring Erik’s vision with her jacket. Logan moves as fast as his busted body can carry him back to the bridge. He slices off part of the damaged leg and shoulders it, moving back towards Laura’s position. He waits and waits and then…

“Laura, MOVE!”

She sees him and leaps off Erik’s shoulders and Logan heaves with all his strength. The man removes the jacket from his face in time to see the splintered piece of wood flying at him, striking his chest and impaling him. He eyes the wound as his arms go slack and he falls to his knees in silence. Logan limps his way over and grabs him by the head so he can look him in the eye.

“Your child,” Erik croaks, “will never know peace.” _Cough!_ “She’ll be doomed to a life of endless battle. Just like you.”

“Not like me. Better.”

Logan plunges his claws into Erik’s chest. Upon retracting, he lands on his backside in the stream and just stays there. It was a fight he hadn’t wanted. Quite simply it was a matter of survival: not just his own. He raises his hands, claws still drawn, and sees them shaking. He closes his eyes, sucks in a breath, and slowly recedes them back into his fists.

What feels like a small fist connects with the flesh of his shoulder. Sure enough it’s Laura, with her hands on her hips.

“The hell was that for?”

“De nada.”

“Psh! ‘Welcome,’ she says. I’m the one who should be pissed. I told you to stay put!”

“ _De nada_.”

“Gracias, I guess.”

Logan creaks his way up and stalks to the bank of the stream where Laura’s jacket lies. He holds it up and she takes it, not waiting for him to follow her back to the cart. She’s already in the basket when he makes it back. He gets closer and sees Magneto’s helmet sitting in her lap. She holds it up for him to see and he wants to toss the thing as far as he can into the woods, but its previous owner has taken up too much of his mental space already, so he shrugs.

“I don’t give a shit. He won’t be needin’ it.”

Laura accepts this and makes space for it in the cart. He thinks about putting his overshirt back on, but remembers that he’s soaked and decides to let Laura have it for a bit. Before they begin moving, a petal lands on her head. She plucks it off and studies it. He doubts she’s seen anything like it before. He looks up himself: cherry blossom.

“They teach ya about Japan in that pen?”

Laura shakes her head.

“Helluva place. I’ll tell ya about it sometime.”

**Author's Note:**

> U.S. cherry blossoms are not native to either Dakota, but for the sake of this story, they definitely are. Ah, the power of fiction!


End file.
